DROID RAZR and MAXX ICS Soak Test is Live

We are getting closer, people. DROID RAZR and RAZR MAXX owners that hang out over at Motorola’s Support Forums have started to receive “soak test” builds of the Ice Cream Sandwich update that you are all waiting patiently for. When this happens, that means the test has officially begun. Once they have had a chance to play with it for up to a week (hopefully less time in this scenario), then the update gets a final approval and is made available to the public.

If you missed any of our coverage of the update so far, be sure to check it all out so that you are an Android 4.0.4 pro. Here is the full changelog and highlight list for the update. Here is an intro video from Motorola. Here is info on the leak that came out a few days ago, which is the same build. It can be flashed in your stock recovery, however, people are running into issues, so be careful. The official update should be here shortly and you may want to wait it out.

For those that have received it, is it everything you ever dreamed it would be?

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yeahthatsright

Ics has cooled down Atlanta just a little on the hottest day ever. Looks great runs smoothly. I know you take a screen shoot by Yep that worked 9am it was ready. I did have too check the update selection in about phone. Good luck everyone

cdawg614

Got my ics about 2 hours ago it is sweet about time verizon

kier23

Just received it about 2 am in southern Indiana as soon as I got on wifi clicked status updates and there it was 🙂 downloading now can’t wait

Not sure anything has been “confirmed”….from what I have read there is a consensus that today is the day we believe ICS will be released for all.

When I check for an update, it is not telling me check for update is not available at this time. My guess on that is that everyone is trying to manually update their phones today and it is overloaded (previously I was getting a “your device is up to date message”).

My phone is semi bricked from attempting to update with recovery.. Battery is dead and no method works to get it charged.. Is there a stock Gingerbread .zip i can use in recovery since i cant flash on the computer?.

it is the same. Just only select MFN (Motorola Feedback Network) members get access to it.

Cheese

Nothing on my end yet :/

lilschil

I received the soak test OTA update. The file download fine. I click UPDATE when prompted. It shuts down and goes to the install screen. The progression bar gets to about 25% and I get the triangle with “!” in the middle. Phone then finishes rebooting and I get a install failed error. I am stock, rooted. Using Titanium Backup to freeze apps. I’m also using Voodoo OTA. I tried Defrosting all apps and temporarily remove root with Voodoo. Nothing works. Stops at 25% every time. I also downloaded leak file and tried installing using ROM Manager according to droidrzr instructions. Same issue. What gives!?

Potential downside: if you do the soft brick, even the DroidRazr Utility 1.7 won’t necessarily make everything fine and dandy. I’m back up in Gingerbread… without a 4G radio. It will presumably get sorted out when the full update comes down through, but in the meantime, I’m annoyed at my own impatience.

Walmes27

OK Kellex, you was right i was wrong, its only for testers or a small group for now, then i guess it will rollout a few days later or whatever. but please be more specific with your articles as it completely threw me off. thanks.

Jigga_Z

Direct quote from the article you linked to earlier:

“One thing to keep in mind, is that many of you may not receive the update today at all. A lot of times, the initial go live date is for testers or small groups to make sure the update isn’t going to blow up a bunch of phones. Mass availability could and will likely happen a few days later. ”

He was specific, you just didn’t read it 🙂

Walmes27

no no i meant the title of the article sorry.

wags

The leak worked on my maxx, but i did have some issues. It got stuck at first and my battery died, which bricked my phone. After wiping, and loading from sd card the second time it took. Non rooted and didnt use 1.7 utility. Sketchy but all good now.

I pretty much did the same on mine (not MAXX)
I used stock recovery and flashed the update,
got error in /tmp/sideload/package.zip Status 0
Phone was stuck in bootloop.
Then I used the UNSTUCK util (flashes 211 kernel)
then used stock recovery again and flashed succesfully.
I DID NOT wipe data/cache, DIDN’T use Matts Util
Although, my battery was below 20% the first time and I let it charge before the second attempt.
All in all, I’m happy to have the update, but nothing spectacular……..

Dave Sloboda

Goodbye Droid RAZR…hello paperweight. There is NOTHING soft about my new brick!

“Certified like new” replacement has been ordered. I know I really only have my impatience to blame, but I’m beyond annoyed with this situation.

I don’t know man…I can’t get it to do anything at all really. For instance, right now…I’m in AP Fastboot Flash Mode but that’s about as far as I can get with it.

I tried the Mac/Linux Utility thing to try and at least restore it to Gingerbread, but the Utility wasn’t recognizing the location of the Fastboot or ADB files that it came with, even though I didn’t move the files or change them in any way. So when the part comes up saying “Hit Enter when the screen comes back on…”, well…my screen never even goes off in the first place! The Fastboot Flash Mode recognized that it was plugged in to my computer by USB, but that was about it.

And now, it seems the phone won’t even charge…so right now, still in Fastboot mode, and after I’d left it plugged into charge for at least 2 hours or so…it’s saying “Battery Low. Cannot Program.”

If you or ANYone has any other ideas that would work…please let me know!

BigDaddyEllison

I just got past this and was able to do a full load. The battery level is kept in cache. Boot to recovery mode and select the option to format cache, as soon as I did that, the Fastboot said battery level was fine and it went through the process. Good Luck.

Dave Sloboda

Just wiped the cache, Fastboot still says “Battery Low”…and I even did all this with the phone plugged into the charger (usb-to-outlet, not usb-to-computer).

It’s strange…once I unplug the phone…it powers down. If I plug it back in, it immediately goes to the Moto Dual Core screen and stays there infinitely. I’m convinced that if I can just get a charge to it, I could probably get it restored to factory settings and move on…but the odds are apparently not in my favor.

I was reading up about a Factory Cable, but I really don’t have the means to do that. Plus, since I have a replacement on the way, I didn’t want to risk sending this one out after popping the back off to use a Factory Cable…seeing as they said they’ll be checking the phone for damage & misuse and would charge me $299 if anything is wrong with it along those lines.

Chris Trail

My wifes phone did same thing. I popped back of phone off, took an old usb cable and cut the end off and stripped the red and black wire. unscrew the 2 screws for the battery connector and put the red wire under the + screw, and the black wire under the – screw. Plug this cable into your USB port on your computer. Then plug in your normal USB cable from laptop to phone and you will not get the battery low message while using RSD and Fastboot. The whole process took maybe 30 minutes. The biggest problem with the razr maxx is the plastic cover that is over the battery terminals.

Dave Sloboda

Yeah, I gave up on it. Like I said, I don’t wanna risk having to pay another $300 on this phone if Verizon finds out I tried to pop the back off or something like that. I’m just gonna wait for the “new” phone and be done with it. Sucks for me, but oh well.

Plus, I’m on a Mac, and all that RSD stuff is PC (at least from what I could find).

Even if I had Bootcamp, my current iMac is a lil’ old and sluggish, so it probably wouldn’t handle it too well.

Nolan

Mine did the same thing. I just turned safemode back off and it restored original….

charlie115

Just get another date cable cut in half remove plastic and glue from small end there will be an empty terminal by white wire on small plug put wires back together match colors and add one red jumper wireto empty terminal by white wire on small end thats ityou no have a factory programming cable ap fast boot. 181 all fixed the days of bricked razrs is over this will fix any problem anyone will experience. I hope this will helo everyone

InyRules

I just received my RAZR MAXX as a replacement for my Nexus. This pixels are killing me…

tom

what happened to ur nexus. why did they replace with a maxx. did u get ics yet

InyRules

I am consistently having the one way audio issue with it on phone calls. On the MAXX I can see all the pixels on everything and it’s very disappointing.

ERIC REED

But making calls on your phone has got to be cool!!!

InyRules

I’m STILL having audio issues on calls.

ERIC REED

After a week with the Nexus and hating life I sold it. Activated my old phone and was bombarded with text messages that I hadn’t received during the week. Really just one of the worst phone experiences I’ve had.

InyRules

I’ve never had the issue with a Nexus device. My experience with it is fine other than the audio issue and the battery life. But now it seems my issue is not hardware related as it is network related. I am having the same audio issue on the MAXX they sent, and I’ve tried 3 difference sim cards with no luck.

Did you get the hardware replaced on the Nexus before switching to the RAZR?

I’ve owned nothing but Moto phones/tablets up until the nextus. I’m telling you, that you’re setting yourself up for major disappointment with the RAZR.

InyRules

What hardware do you mean? And the Maxx is OK besides the display. I like making calls that I can understand.

Emad Zia

I felt this way exactly, but honestly, as much as i’m still not used to the screen as much, the reception, connectivity, and call quality was just beyond anything i had on the multiple nexus (nexi?) i tried out, so i havent turned back. i do miss the screen very greatly but i needed those other things more

There are certain things about the MAXX that are great, but I’m not 100% in keeping it. The data connectivity, call quality, and of course, battery, are all good, but there’s something that’s keeping me from staying with it and sending my Nexus back. It could be that I’m miffed at all the bloatware, and that it only has 3gb of storage allocated to apps. I’m also disenchanted with the capacitive buttons. I’m a bit spoiled by the onscreen navigation. I wish ICS would get to this MAXX soon before Verizon starts hounding me to send them a phone back,

I got it this morning. I found a few glitches and called Verizon. Apparently I am one of 20,000 people that got it. They sent me to motorola who used logmein ics to connect to my phone and document my few issues. So far so good. A lot to take in. But it seems good. The level 2 tech seemed genuinely surprised that there was no 3G only option. Plus there’s this weird keyboard input icon that appears w every text message. And 2-3 other minor issues so far. Plus a lot has been moved around… So if you are used to doing things one way ( for instance.. Attaching pics in text). It may take a bit to figure out what’s going on. I will fill ya in more as I play.

2) run the utility, choose option 1. When is says searching for phone, plug phone in in AP Fast Boot (holding volume up and down while restarting phone) Also, make sure you have plugged your phone in when it was on to the computer with USB debuggin on before you take this step. dont know if you need the drivers just in case you dont have em.. I dont know if this makes a difference, but i’m letting you know what i did to be successful 2x.
3) run the utility and go through it. it takes about 5 mins, and then tells you to flash the update from your SD card
4) WIPE YOUR PHONE USING THE RECOVERY TOOL
5) Flash from SD card, and you should be done. this is the exact thing i did on both my devices and it worked perfectly.

I know this has been expained, but make sure you reset your phone after installing the utility stuff

Emad Zia

yes, i sucked it up and deleted everything. backed up my txts and apps and all that though

Black

Thanks for the help did the 1.6 then 1.7 utility and phone has ICS now. Again thanks for the help.

Dave Sloboda

Ok…so i tried flashing this thing, but didn’t have the Utility 1.7 thing, so i ended up getting the error and the installation was aborted.

All i want right now is to have my phone reboot as it was before i tried installing this and i keep getting stuck in a boot loop. i’ve tried a bunch of the different options with the Power and Volume keys and their subsequent menus…but nothing is working.

Is there something i’m missing that will allow me to reboot normally without having to do a factory reset (and thus losing my data)?!

Oscar Botelho

ive done the factory data reset and even that wont allow the phone to boot up again..

oh and if you can’t get it to turn off (I had a similar situation as you yesterday), hold power and volume-…once the screen turns off keepholding volume-. that will bring you into fastboot. you can then choose to turn the phone off there

Dave Sloboda

I can get the phone to turn off…but from there I still get nothing.
when i power back up…it’s still stuck in the boot screen (Moto Dual Core).

Is there no way whatsoever to just get back to my previous running version WITHOUT losing data?

joshua weissman

Its called a soft brick there are some forums with some software that would be needed to recover your phone

Dave Sloboda

i assume all this software is PC-based, not Mac, right?

joshua weissman

That I don’t know. I do know it work on PC not sure if anyone built a MAC version of it. Its the recovery tool that they are talking about above in the comments that’s what I’ve heard most people using to get out of the soft brick

Kellex, I’m pretty sure that the leak will NOT work with stock recovery. It requires you to use Matts RAZR Utility 1.7 > option 1….I tried using stock recovery yesterday and got errors like everyone else. I got caught in a boot loop, and had to fastboot back and use matt’s utility 1.7.

Post updated. Probably best for people to wait for the official push which could be in just a couple of days. The leaked file that was originally posted above works, but you have to wipe data first. I know that most probably don’t want to do that.

you really should take the link down. No one is having success, and are getting stuck in a soft brick

Oscar Botelho

Ive wiped data and cleared partition cache.. Still getting the error and stuck in boot..

ant

this is ridiculous that these steps were given to a T and its not working and now I have a completely stuck razr doing nothing but sitting at the m logo. ive wiped data numerous times wipe cache, redownloaded the zip replaced it on sd card, and still getting error messages. really should remove all posts explaining the update method because it did nothing but cause problems.

Iamthetoph

Mine works like charm

Ronnie sharei

is it the official from verizon? i don’t think so i didn’t get the update!!

MrToTo83

I did the links version on two phones that did not get it and it worked just fine. Not even needing to be rooted. If you follow directions step by step its fine. And it lookes exactly like the phone that got the official OTA

If I install this leak instead of waiting will I still be able to install future updates or will I have to revert?

tCub

I cant answer you 100% but im almost certain Yes. This is what’s going to be sent out so the mechanism that looks for updates wouldnt know the difference between this and the ota. One thing im concerned about is what i did to the bootloader to get it working but i dont think that will make a difference as its still stock and its up to date.

michael arazan

you should check xda for answers or post your question there, those guys are very knowledgeable

Emad Zia

the only thing i dont like is that they took out firefox capability from webtop. i dont use webtop a lot, but when i travel i used to hook up my phone to the hotel tv’s. I know dolphin is close to full blown, but firefox was good for regular browsing.

other than that, i cant believe how close to stock it is. no one can complain about this at all!! I still use Nova Launcher though, i hate not being able to add widgets by long pressing.

Put the .zip file on your SD card, not internal storage. Power your phone off. Then hold Volume + and – plus power until you get to the first menu. Scroll down to Recovery and then press Volume + on it.Then you get to an exclamation point with an Android figurine. Press both Volume + and – at the same time to get into recovery.Then choose the update.zip option and then the .zip file that you downloaded to your sd card. Let it load.

Well if you actually read the entire post, you’ll realize that Verizon announced that it was supposed to start rolling out on the 22nd (yesterday). We actually told you that the soak test would likely only happen on that day and not the mass rollout to the public. We also mentioned that most of you would not see the update for a while.

That’s exactly what happened.

Walmes27

so theres no official rollout then? i dont know anymore, im just going by what i thought was a offical public OTA update. so when would i see a official OTA update?

evltwn

If you would like to get the updates early, sign up on Motorola Forums to be a part of the soak tests. This is how Moto does it….they usually start a soak on a Friday so soak testers can test it over the weekend. Then on Monday or Tuesday they will ask for feedback from the soakers. It’s a simple survey. Then usually the OTA rolls out to the masses by Thursday or Friday. Which means that Motorola will have kept it’s word by rolling it out in Q2 of this year.

Alexander Garcia

LOL You just got BURNED by Lord Kell =P

Scott H

I don’t know how it’s determined, but I got the OTA update this morning. My wife got her Maxx at the same time and did not.

Steve

This might simply be my imagination, but it seems that since the ICS upgrade battery life using 4G is very impressive. I’ve gone a good portion of two days of playing with the phone off and on and I’m still at 90 percent. It appears that the option to force the phone back to 3G only has been removed.

Jigga_Z

Try doing *#*#4636#*#* in the dialer. You can change radio settings that way. Does that work for you and force 3G?

I’m surprised they removed this option, but not the option to disable bloat O_o

Ginger

How do you get the leak? i tryed the power thing and i doesant give me ics

Mike F.

What time did people start to get their update? I my started last night at about 1030pm. I’m in Phx, AZ. From the time it started downloading to 1st boot-up took about an hour. I didn’t have my wifi on, so it downloaded over 4G. Phone did get a little warm too. So far I’m loving ICS on my MAXX.

Haas

Lucky you, I live in Goodyear and still haven’t received anything as of yet.

Scott H

I got an update notice about 2am. Just got done installing! My wife got her Maddigan at the same time I did, but hasn’t gotten it yet.

matthew

Everything and more.

KRS_Won

So far so good. Biggest gripe is the new keyboard.

ryan F

agree with the keyboard, keyboard in GB was much better spaced and easier for me to use. Still love the update though

hkklife

After having used the latest Bionic ICS leak for 2 days I can also agree 100% with this statement. The new ICS keyboard SUCKS. The old Moto Froyo and GB Blur keyboard was AWESOME and probably my favorite onscreen keyboard on any Android 2.x device!

Can someone work up a knockoff of the Blur keyboard and put it on the market ASAP!? I’d pay a buck or two for it!

Put the .zip file on your SD card, not internal storage. Power your phone off. Then hold Volume + and – plus power until you get to the first menu. Scroll down to Recovery and then press Volume + on it.

Then you get to an exclamation point with an Android figurine. Press both Volume + and – at the same time to get into recovery.

Then choose the update.zip option and then the .zip file that you downloaded to your sd card. Let it load.

joshua weissman

Thanks I think your link is getting overloaded download says it’ll take an hour :/ Hopefully all goes well once it is done downloading.

tCub

Anyone know what an Error Status 0 means?? 🙁

charle ward

so if you flash the leak you still keep your data on your phone? it doesnt wipe it?

I’m pretty sure that the leak will NOT work with stock recovery. It requires you to use Matts RAZR Utility 1.7 > option 1….I tried using stock recovery yesterday and got errors like you. I got caught in a boot loop, like you, and had to fastboot back and use matt’s utility 1.7.

Dave Sloboda

at this point i just want a phone that works…i’ll wait for the OTA update…but I can’t get out of the boot loop! I’ve tried a bunch of things and nothing works!

I keep getting a “verification failed” when I try to run that with this method. Is there something I’m missing, or not doing right? I downloaded the file, put on SD card, and got into the update zip option, but once I select the file, it starts to work, then I get the verification error, and it stops. Do I need to be rooted or anything? I’m on pure stock.

BigDaddyEllison

First off, I have been with Android since the beginning, I am in IT, I totally understand this was at my own risk, I am the one that decided to try it so I don’t blame anyone but myself for getting impatient. That said, my phone is more like a boat anchor now than a brick. So, if the 1.6 utility fails (it’s not really mac Air friendly) what is another recovery you might suggest? I have dumped cache, tried to do the system restore, and tried the install multiple times. Right now I just need my phone working so I am open to any ideas. Thanks for the help!

poopy

maybe you should have thought about that before being impatient? must not have needed the phone THAT bad.